


I Like it Like That

by Mallory Klohn (malloryklohn)



Category: Queer as Folk (UK)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-01
Updated: 2009-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-02 04:02:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malloryklohn/pseuds/Mallory%20Klohn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twenty-seven million wrongs make a right when Stuart, having tortured Vince over innumerable terrible, terrible dates, finally Sees The Light.  It's pretty much the worst cliche ever in the romcom genre, but with more buttsecks and (mostly) better dialogue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Like it Like That

I. Much More Than a Hunch  
   
 

He was big, he was hot, and he was lounging on his bed, half-naked. His name was Brian, but that wasn't good enough for him. "I just thought--" He looked up at Vince shyly. "Would you mind very much calling me Carol?"

Vince schooled his expression into one of calm curiosity. "Carol," he said flatly, hoping he'd misunderstood, that the man was dyslexic, that he'd meant Carlo. Hoping this was all a terrible dream, failing that.

"Would you mind?"

He raked his hair with one hand and forced himself not to back away. "It's a bit weird, is all. I've no objections to sex change people, honestly I haven't--"

"Oh, no, it's nothing _like_ that," said Brian, laughing delightedly. "I'm so sorry! I can just imagine what you must've been thinking."

"Yeah," said Vince, his heart sinking already. If he didn't want to be called Carol because he had some sort of gender identification problem-- which would've been bad enough-- then it could only be the beginning of yet another of Vince Tyler's Catastrophic Shags.

There had only been a few so far that were so horrible that he couldn't look back on them and laugh... years and years down the road... but when Vince thought about his age, as any of Stuart's mates was obliged to do just slightly more often than your average bloke, he didn't see Stuart's nightmarish downward spiral of rejection and decay.

No, for Vince, his relative youth was much more terrifying than his relative age. If he lived to be, say, seventy-five, that was another forty-five _years_ of wading through the backwash of humanity, looking for one normal man, just one, like a gay Don Quixote. Even when he minded his own business, freaks and reprobates flocked to him in droves. Hazel said they sensed his compassion. Stuart said they sensed he was a twat.

"You could call me Carol," said Brian, "and I could call you Mike."

"I'm rather fond of Vince."

Without conscious thought, his survival skills had kicked in. When confronted by a bear, play dead. When confronted by a lunatic, play stupid. He knew where this was going; after better than fifteen years playing the lead in this twisted Technicolor spectacular, that knowledge was in his DNA.

"Mike and Carol," he pronounced carefully, for Vince's sake. "Mike and Carol Brady. _You_ know."

He knew who. What he couldn't understand was _why_. And he wanted to understand, he _needed_ to understand, if for no better reason than to give some sort of meaning to this wasted evening, but no power on earth could make him ask. Because if there was one thing Vince _did_ understand, it was that he would receive an _answer_ to that question, an answer that would likely haunt him for the rest of his life.

"What do you say?" He stretched extravagantly, making sure Vince took it all in: the sculpted chest, the lush mouth, the _perfect_ arse... surely, his display seemed to suggest, calling him Carol wouldn't be too much to ask in exchange for all this.

At times like these, Vince imagined a whole chapter devoted to himself in a book entitled _Anything For a Shag_, a book that also contained chapters about men and their melons and women and their dogs.

Yes, there was something fundamentally repellent about a woman pleasuring herself with a magnum of champagne, or a man using a vacuum cleaner for something other than its intended purpose, butterfly nets and spice racks subjected to treatment that their inventors had never imagined in even their worst nightmares, but how was that any more objectionable than, say, the time Vince had agreed to a shag with a man who could only maintain an erection while listening to Johnny Mathis singing _You Belong to Me_?

__

Oh, what's dignity worth, really?

Vince wasn't sure where the decision was. Stay with Brian, get shagged cross-eyed, go home and shower six or seven times. Go home straight away, have a wank, watch paid programming. Either way, Stuart would tear him to pieces the next morning when the time came to compare evenings, and if it came down to a choice between being shagged cross-eyed or having a wank...

Swallowing painfully, he knelt by the bed and leaned in for a kiss.

"Wait," said Brian. "Say it."

He opened his mouth, silently praying that his terror wouldn't get the best of him, that he wouldn't start babbling on about whether or not the actress who'd played Cindy had ever made a porno. Before he could say anything, though, his mobile rang.

"'Scuse me," he said, leaping to his feet.

"Can't you leave it?"

"I _wish_. It's just-- my brother. His wife's left him, took the kids, got the house, he's on the brink of suicide. I said call anytime."

"And he's calling," Brian said grimly.

"He's calling," said Vince. "Sorry. D'you mind?"

"Go ahead," he pouted, posing for Vince again. "I can wait."

He scooped up his mobile and tried not to look too eager. "Yeah?"

"Vince, emergency," Stuart barked.

"What's happened?"

"I'm _lost_," he said indignantly. "I'm in the middle of fucking _nowhere_. You have to come get me."

He glanced at Brian. He was shimmying out of his boxers, smiling invitingly. "Stay put," Vince told Stuart. "I'll call you right back."

"Vince!" Vince cut him off.

Brian raised his eyebrows. "Well?"

"I can't stay," said Vince with halfway sincere regret. "There's no telling what he'll do. He's a bit unstable."

His mobile began ringing again while he was shrugging into his jacket. "I'm really sorry," he said.

"Family's family," said Brian. "Nobody understands that better than the Bradys."

"I suppose not," he said weakly, slipping out the door. The shrill ringing of his phone mocked him all the way down the hall. Out of sheer spite, he kept Stuart waiting till he was safely inside the Jeep. "I _said_ I'd call you back, didn't I?"

"Not good enough," said Stuart. "I'm not gonna stand here and wait to be slaughtered by angry farmers while you sit in your sad little biscuit tin of a flat catching the tail end of _Zardoz_."

"I hate _Zardoz_," he protested. "And I wasn't _in_ my flat, if you must know."

"I don't _give_ a fuck, Vince. Just come get me."

"And just how the hell am I supposed to find you if _you_ don't know where you are?"

"Fuck!" Stuart hadn't thought that far ahead. It was a bad sign.

Vince wasn't stupid enough to ask him how he'd become stranded in the first place. When Stuart didn't willingly offer up some bit of information, it was invariably something Vince didn't want to know. "It's all right," he said. "Don't panic. Do you see any sort of distinguishing landmarks?"

"Yeah, there's a big sign right in front of me that says WELCOME TO HELL."

"You're not helping," Vince said mildly.

"And _you_ are?"

"You should invest in one of those tracking systems like they always have in action films. Christ knows you'd get some use out of it, and it's not as though you can't afford it."

"Fuck off, Vince. I come to you in my time of need--"

He snickered. "Oh, I like that, time of need. Do you honestly expect me to believe that you haven't already exhausted every other possible option?"

"I called you first, you twat, and what bloody difference does it make _when_ I need you, anyway?"

He was right, of course, but Vince thought it was extremely rude of him to say it so plainly. Then again, complaining that Stuart was rude was a bit like complaining that cats preyed on mice, or that crows liked shiny things.

"Vince?"

"I'm here," he sighed. "Right. Tell me how you got there, and we'll have a bash at it, yeah?"

It was more than two hours before Vince finally found him, and by the time he did, it was all too obvious that Stuart had given himself up for dead. He sat in the middle of the road with his legs pulled up and his head in his hands, soaking up all the rain in the world and shaking with cold.

Vince knew what he was thinking: _Maybe I'll get hit by a truck before I die of exposure_. It couldn't be that he thought Vince might miss him otherwise. He would search high and low for Stuart without a thought for his own safety; Stuart knew that better than anyone.

"And you never had a chance to tell me how much you've always loved me," he muttered, leaning on the horn. "That's a tragedy, that is."

Stuart came to his feet stiffly, shielding his eyes from the glare of the headlights. His clothes were bunched-up and soggy, his skin was very nearly blue, and the diabolical rain that had been chucking down all night had transformed his hair from its usual inspired riot of curls into a series of nasty, dripping corkscrews that sprang forth from his scalp as if with malevolent intent.

Vince forgave the universe instantly.

"I've never wanted you more," he told Stuart when he climbed into the Jeep.

"Cunt," Stuart muttered. "Isn't there supposed to be a blanket in here?"

"Lost it," he said apologetically, turning up the heat. "Burned it, actually. Driving that bloke home, that Keith Logan." No matter how he tried, he could never keep from pronouncing the names of Stuart's shags like the foulest obscenities. "D'you remember, he passed out with a lit fag in his hand, set the blanket ablaze. Smoke pouring out the windows like we came down on the wrong side of the IRA. And _you_, pissing yourself laughing. Said God took a hand in ridding the world of Keith's terrible trousers."

"What were you doing when I rang you?" He said it calmly, quietly, but somehow it was deadlier for all that.

It was a simple enough question, but for some reason, the only answer that came to mind immediately was hopelessly melodramatic: he'd been battling the forces of darkness that had seen fit to saddle him with a life that was a constant struggle between the loneliness of celibacy and the loneliness of sacrificing what little remained of his self-respect for the sake of a shag with the Maniac of the Week.

Some higher power had it in for him; that much he knew. It wasn't enough that he should be presented daily with his heart's desire, only to be shown time and time again that he could never have it. That would've been cruel, but not necessarily diabolical.

No, the _real_ evil genius lay in phase two: after he was _already_ depressed and feeling about as sexy as desiccated roadkill, he wound up in bed (or beside the bed, or _beneath_ the bed) with some freaked-out reprobate who made Martian suicide sex cultists seem perfectly rational. The only lesson to be gleaned from things like this was that Vince was the devil's plaything, and what the hell kind of lesson was that?

"Vince," Stuart said irritably as the silence stretched, "I've already defied death once tonight. If you're falling asleep at the wheel, just say so, for fuck's sake."

"Sorry. Went on a bit of a holiday there."

"Bollocks. You had one of your little calamities tonight, didn't you?"

"_You're_ a fine one to talk about calamities," Vince protested. "If you could see the state of you--"

"You _did_," Stuart crowed. "You copped off with another nutter, you sad _bastard_." Now that he'd found his voice again, there was no shutting him up. "What was it this time? Did he have the Mark of Satan on his arse? Did he drink from the toilet? Did he ask you to spank him with back-issues of _Hello_ magazine?"

"He had three cocks," Vince said loudly. "And he was about to show me what he does with them when _you_ rang." Stuart fell silent at last. "It was a once-in-a-lifetime chance, and I've lost it because of you. I'll never forgive you."

Stuart smirked. "Twat."  
   
   
 

II. Ciao, Bela  
   
 

"Hiya."

Vince jumped a little, spilling his drink. The Man in Black had come up behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder that he wasn't expecting, murmuring his greeting in Vince's ear as if he did it all the time.

A part of Vince that would not be laid decently to rest assumed that he was drunk, that he'd tripped, using Vince to regain his balance while he chatted up the man standing next to him-- whose attention Vince himself had been trying to attract for better than half an hour.

The disaster with the _Brady Bunch_ man had taken some of the piss and vinegar out of Vince. Since the men he chose were increasingly demented as time wore on, his new approach was to wait to be chosen. So far he was about as much in demand as worm sandwiches, and he wasn't at all confident that that would change in time, but he was willing to give it a go for a week, at least. Ten days at the outside.

The Man in Black had been creeping in and out of Vince's awareness for months. No-one seemed to know his name, nor had Vince yet met anyone he'd taken home with him. He just drifted blithely from one club to the next, clad all in black, smiling enigmatically, dancing rarely.

Stuart had dismissed him immediately as the tortured poet type, weeping after sex, and spending his days in a foul depression because there were so few moors left to wander now if a bloke was feeling misunderstood, but Vince had always been secretly intrigued by him.

Given the state of his life, that alone was enough to instill in him an intense, visceral terror.

Things spun out of control so quickly sometimes. One minute he might be making fabulous eye contact with The Man in Black over a quick drink, and the next, he could be naked but for a saddle, his new friend menacing him with a riding crop and calling him Shiloh.

"You all right?" he asked.

"Oh! Yeah. Sorry," Vince said sheepishly. "You're talking to _me_."

"I certainly am," he said. "I'm Paul."

Vince relaxed a little. Paul. Not Raven Blackwing or some bloody thing. Just plain, old, ordinary, biblical Paul. "I'm Vince."

He smiled. "Not Vincent?"

"'S a bit posh, isn't it?"

"You could be posh," said Paul, fingering Vince's collar. "I could see you in something expensive, strolling down the street with that sweet, sweet smile, never letting on that you could buy and sell anybody you favor with a glance."

__

Run, he told himself. _Run fast, run far. Join a monastery if you have to, but run, for the love of god!_ But then he said, "Not me, mate. Got wrinkles on my wrinkles."

"I could imagine you _out_ of something expensive," Paul said silkily, "if you'd prefer."

Vince couldn't let it slide. _No_ shag was worth that. "That's a terrible line," he said sadly.

He had the good grace to look ashamed of himself. "Yeah, I know."

"A _terrible_ line," Vince chided him. "There ought to be laws against lines like that one."

"Let me make it up to you," said Paul, thumping his glass down on the bar decisively.

Vince's eyebrows shot up. "What exactly did you have in mind?"

"Come back to mine."

"Just like that? And here I thought you were pitching woo."

Paul grabbed him by the hips, and Vince let him crowd him against the bar, bringing their cocks together solidly. He had nothing even _approaching_ a hard-on, and Paul noticed it straight away, frowning in irritation.

"I can see I'll have to make more of an effort with you."

"More than what?" Vince smirked.

Smiling seductively, Paul ducked his head and nuzzled Vince's throat. Vince was too startled to react properly, at first; he just stood there dumbly while Paul painted his neck with little cat licks that were designed to make him purr, and working, at that, despite his many reservations. He buried a hand in Paul's hair and pulled him off, gently.

"Oi, I can't walk out of here with a hickey on my neck. If one of my mates sees it, he'll think it's a sign of the bloody end times."

"Come back to mine," Paul said again, more urgently now. "Please."

He couldn't remember the last time someone had said please to him when they weren't asking him to do something that went against everything he believed in. Stuart didn't even _say_ please; he just told Vince what he wanted and waited impatiently for Vince to come through for him.

Hearing it now-- being on the other end of this particular kind of beg-- was a new experience for Vince, and a novel one. "Yeah, all right."

Paul's flat looked as though it'd been bombed by Merchant and Ivory. There was no mistaking that it was full of very _expensive_ fripperies, but they were fripperies all the same, all gold leaf and tassels and ornamental furniture.

Not sure where to sit and frankly afraid to touch anything, Vince settled for leaning against the only wall in the parlor that wasn't covered in prints or tapestries or rugs. He was convinced that it'd been left bare for that express purpose.

"What do you think?" Paul asked. His tone made it clear that what he was really saying was 'Tell me how much you love it.'

"It's nice," he said quickly. "Dark. You'd never notice a stain, unless it was milk, or toothpaste. There's a thing, toothpaste. Why does it always have to be light colors? What's so terrible about a nice violet, or dark green? You're just gonna spit it out anyway. Mind you, it might make brushing a bit scary--"

Paul grabbed his shoulders and shoved him against the wall just hard enough to make him gasp. "I think both of us do better when we're not speaking," he said, and kissed him. It was hot, and wet, and surprisingly persuasive, considering that the last thing Vince had seen over Paul's shoulder before he'd closed his eyes was a tapestry depicting a gory fox hunt.

Vince moaned into his mouth and slid his hands around to cup Paul's arse. Paul pulled away abruptly, his skin flushed.

"Sorry," he breathed. "I'm not ready yet."

Vince smiled. "Didn't feel that way to me."

"I know. Sorry. I just need to freshen up a bit. Wait for me?"

"Sure, yeah."

Paul vanished without telling Vince where he might sit himself down, if he were so inclined. He prodded a plush, claw-footed divan gingerly with his foot, and finding it firm, sat down cautiously. When the divan didn't collapse beneath him, he yanked his mobile out of his jacket and dialed Stuart's flat.

He got the answerphone, but he'd been expecting that; he hadn't wanted to speak to Stuart in person just then. That Stuart would find out that Vince had shagged The Man in Black was inevitable. That Vince would never live it down, regardless of the outcome, was a given as well. Still, where was the harm in putting it off a little longer?

"I played hard-to-get and I got gotten," he said incredulously. "You know what that is? Negative bloody reinforcement. I _hate_ blokes who play games like that. But you know who gets shagged every night? It's them, standing around, looking like they're not bothered. Meanwhile I'm pratting about like a twat, and what do I get for my trouble? Lunatics and the late show. And all I had to do was say 'maybe'. It's disgusting."

More confident in the divan now, he settled in against its side with a sigh. "You should _see_ this place. It's mental. I mean, completely mental. All it wants is velvet ropes and a tour guide and it'd be one of Mad King Ludwig's bloody castles. It's..."

His voice trailed off when Paul slunk back into the room. He was dressed much the same as before, but with one crucial difference: he was wearing a cape. A long, black, satin cape, complete with a high collar and red satin lining.

"Oh my _god_," Vince breathed. "I've got to go."

He wasn't sure who he'd said it to, but Paul's smile said he assumed Vince meant the man on the other end of the line. Vince cut the connection and stuffed his mobile back inside his jacket.

"Hiya," Paul said softly. He wouldn't let Vince look away.

"I've got to go," Vince said again. "That was my grandmother. She's got it in her head that she has to do some baking. She's got poor vision in low light, and she's home alone, trying to get things down from high shelves. She's just recovered from hip replacement surgery. It was a bit of an ordeal. Hate to see it happen twice."

"Hang about a minute," he said, slinking closer. "I want to kiss you again."

Vince wanted to get up, to flee the scene, but Paul's cape mesmerized him. It billowed around the other man with even the barest hint of movement, and in its folds, Vince saw a frighteningly detailed retrospective of his grisly train wreck of a sex life.

"Yeah," he said. "Thanks. It's just, my grandmother."

"I know," Paul soothed, coming to sit down beside Vince at last. "It won't take a moment."

Vince stiffened when Paul reached out to touch him, cringed when Paul cupped his jaw in one hand, and fell off the divan when Paul opened his mouth just slightly and revealed the _real_ surprise of the evening: a matching set of blindingly white fangs.

"Jesus _Christ_!" Vince squeaked, scrambling away.

"It's all right," said Paul. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"Too right you're not!" He staggered to his feet and backed away. "What was this supposed to _be_?"

"I'm a creature of the night," Paul said calmly.

Vince was outraged. "I thought you wanted to do card tricks! I could've lived with that, but this is-- this is-- there's not even a _word_ for what this is!"

"I'm sorry."

"Why didn't you _say_? You _never_ say. I meet some bloke, he seems all right, but get him home, and it's off with the trousers and out with the chainsaw. What's the use?"

Paul seemed amused by this. "Would you have come home with me if I'd told you?"

"Of _course_ not, but how is _this_ better? Unless you're planning to kill me." His eyes widened. "Oh my god, are you planning to _kill_ me?"

He rolled his eyes. "Don't be daft."

"Oh, right, _I'm_ the one with the problem. You could've at least had them colored to match the rest of your teeth."

"That would've been very expensive," Paul sighed.

"So's therapy! I--" The ringing of his mobile interrupted his tirade. "Don't go anywhere," Vince said to him. "I'm not done with you."

"I'm counting on that."

Vince glared at him. "Yeah, what?" he growled into his mobile.

"What the fuck has _you_ sounding butch?" It was Stuart, and he sounded awful. His breath was coming out in harsh rasps, and his voice was strangely muted, as if he could barely work up the strength for a simple greeting, much less a good rant.

"Blimey," said Vince, his troubles forgotten for the moment, "what happened to you?"

"I'm fucking _handicapped_," he said pitifully. "I fell asleep for a bit, and when I woke up, I was standing at death's door. Not even standing," he complained, "I _can't_ bloody _stand_\--"

Vince was confused. "You fell _asleep_? It's not gone eleven yet."

"That's what I'm _saying_. Jesus Christ, Vince, if I want to talk to someone who doesn't listen to a fucking thing I say, I'll ring Marie."

"Sorry." He brushed past Paul and headed for the door without a backward glance. "Do you want me to go to the chemist's?"

"No, I just felt like a chat," he said. "We never talk like this anymore. For fuck's sake--" His voice broke off, and Vince was treated to the sound of a wet, hacking cough.

He winced. "Do you have to do that into the phone?"

"Fuck off, Vince. Are you coming over or not?"

"'Course I am, yeah. You want anything special?"  
   
 

***

Vince had no sooner given Stuart the rundown of his evening than he'd discovered another reason to regret doing it: Stuart's laughter dissolved into still more coughing, and he couldn't quite catch his breath.

__

Just as well. If he coughs himself unconscious, I might get some peace tonight.

He'd found Stuart lying spread-eagled on his bed, stripped down to his boxers and feeling sorry for himself. The harsh death rattle he called breathing sounded much worse in person than it had over the phone, and he was flushed with fever, but wouldn't you know, it looked good on him. Eyes bright, movements languid...

Vince took comfort in the fact that whatever Stuart had done in a past life to deserve this bountiful good fortune in his present one, he'd almost certainly undone it all already, and had many more years of being a complete bastard to look forward to... assuming he survived this.

"I don't understand it," Vince told him, thumping him on the back. "You were fine when you left me at the club."

"I felt a bit knackered," he admitted. "But nothing like this."

"You should see a doctor. You could have pneumonia or something."

"I'll be fine," he said irritably, swallowing the aspirin Vince gave him. "Just don't go swanning off right away."

"Where would I go?"

He gave Vince a mischievous smile. "Isn't your vampire waiting up for you?"

Vince cuffed him lightly. "Fuck off."

"Great shags, vampires," he went on mercilessly. "Got that kiss of death thing going, haven't they?"

"For the last bloody time, he wasn't really a vampire."

"I don't know how you do it, Vince." He shook his head in mock wonder. "Time after time. You're like a fucking superhero."

"Sacrificial goat, is more like it. Martyring myself on the swords of England's lonely nutcases so that the rest of you can breathe easy, free of the taint of insanity that permeates every aspect of my life."

After an appropriate silence, Stuart said, "_I_ appreciate it."

"If you really want to show your gratitude, shut up and lie down."

"Mm..." He did as he was told. "Keep talking like that and you're gonna get me all hot and bothered."

"That's lovely of you, Stuart, but in case you hadn't noticed, you're _already_ running a fever. I can't speak for bothered, but you're daft, no question."

Vince dug around in the bag he'd brought from the chemist's, finally coming up with a big, blue jar. Stuart remained blithely unaware of what Vince was doing till he opened the jar and the smell wafted out.

"What the hell is that?" Stuart demanded, sitting up quickly.

"Vicks Vapo Rub," Vince said patiently. "Mum swears by it."

"Is that meant to reassure me?"

"Do you want to breathe normally, or not?" Stuart's mutinous expression didn't change. "Listen, Stuart, if you can't breathe, your brain doesn't get any oxygen. Next thing you know, you've got brain damage, and then you're wandering around Canal Street in adult undergarments, with mismatched shoes, cheese in your hair, and your shirt on backwards, rabbiting on about the war."

He smirked. "Which war?"

"Does it matter? Lie down, for Christ's sake."

"All right," he said, collapsing again, eyes closed before his head hit the pillow, "but I'm warning you, Vince--"

"Don't embarrass yourself. If I'm at all frightened of you right now, it's only because I don't want what you've got." He dipped his fingers into the jar and scooped out some of the ointment. "I _like_ the way it smells."

"You like _Godzilla_ films, Vince. You're a twat."

"I'm the twat who's nursing you back to health," he said, smearing a little of the ointment on Stuart's throat. "I realize an outright thank-you would probably kill you instantly, but a little less bitching wouldn't go amiss."

Stuart hissed as the Vapo Rub began to take effect. "Jesus Christ, what's _in_ that stuff?"

"I'm sworn to silence."

He grinned. "Chance'd be a fine thing."

"Shut your face."

Vince continued rubbing the ointment into Stuart's skin, working downward from his throat till he was massaging it into his chest. He knew the exact moment that Stuart achieved the fabled Vapo Rub High: what had moments before been discomfited squirming metamorphosed smoothly into sensuous writhing, his irritated griping into pleased murmuring.

Truthfully, Vince couldn't recall his own Vapo Rub experiences being quite so... erotic... but then again, this was Stuart Jones, the shagging king of Manchester. There was nothing on earth he couldn't sexualize... except, apparently, for Vince, who had no trouble whatsoever when it came to sexualizing Stuart.

Vapo Rub was spoiled for him forever, now.

"Bastard," he said softly, watching Stuart stretch luxuriously beneath his hands.

Stuart opened his eyes, breaking into a lazy smile. "Vince," he said slowly, and whether it was the result of the Vapo Rub or his repeated coughing fits, it came out sounding impossibly sexy, impossibly suggestive.

For one long, charged moment, they just watched one another, Stuart's smile growing as the seconds ticked away, Vince caught with what was undoubtedly a priceless expression on his face. Then the spell broke, and in his haste to get away from Stuart, he nearly fell for a second time that night.

"That's much better, isn't it? I'll just-- soup. You need liquids. And protein. And, eh..." He fled the bedroom and headed for the kitchen.

"Vince." Stuart's quiet plea was almost lost in the murky silence of the flat. "Is there nothing you won't do for me?"

More than anything, he wanted to say no. To say there were limits, rules, boundaries. It was a kind of madness, to love _anyone_ this much, let alone Stuart, so much that he had so little left for himself. It wasn't keep-your-dead-uncle-Larry-in-the-attic-for-two-years-and-pretend-he's-still-alive madness, but it was right up there.

Still, it was comforting in a way. A little bit of lunacy for staid Vince Tyler, The Sensible One.

People could say that he lacked ambition or imagination, people could say he was dull, people could say he was reserved, pragmatic, even awkward, but at the end of the day, he was still the bloke who'd been waiting sixteen years for one particular shag. (People could say he was pathetic, then, but if they did, they could sod off.)

"Vince?" That he'd thought to ask such a question in the first place was testament to how sick he was.

"Yeah," Vince sighed. "Looks that way, doesn't it?"  
   
   
 

III. We Put The U In "Fucked"  
   
 

"Oi, Vince," said Stuart, poking him in the arm, "looks like your fan club finally has a member."

"Fuck off," he grumbled.

He knew exactly who Stuart was talking about: a flabby mountain of a man whose every inch of exposed flesh below the neck was covered in faded tattoos. He looked like he'd once been a roadie for the kind of band that spent more time in prison than on the stage. Naturally, he'd taken a shine to Vince. No matter where he and Stuart had gone that night, the roadie wasn't far behind.

Now they were at Babylon, hiding out on the balcony. (Well, Vince was hiding out. Stuart was surveying his kingdom.) Vince was sure that the roadie hadn't spotted him yet, but he was just as sure that it was only a matter of time.

Vince had no desire to be remembered as one of a series of human heads found in the roadie's deep-freeze, years down the line. He was giving serious thought to going home.

"Not _him_, you twat. Over there. In the leather trousers."

He rolled his eyes. "Show me someone who _isn't_ wearing leather trousers. I'm getting a bit sick of it. It was nice when just a _few_ blokes were turned out in them, the nice ones, bit of a treat, you know, but now _everybody's_ wearing them, and some people _shouldn't_\--"

"There," Stuart said firmly, turning Vince so there could be no mistaking who he meant. Sure enough, standing ostentatiously in the midst of the seething throng, Vince's alleged fan stared up at them.

"He's all right," Vince allowed. He was fantastic, actually, leather trousers not withstanding. He had thick brown hair, a long, lean body, and an unsettling but not unwelcome resemblance to Clive Owen. "But it's _you_ he's gawking at."

"Vince, for fuck's sake--" Stuart raked his hair with both hands. "If you don't shag him, I will."

"'S not like you to give me a choice," he said cheerfully. "I'm moved."

"What the hell is the matter with you tonight?" Stuart demanded.

Vince searched the dance floor till he saw the roadie. "If this were the year _3000_," he told Stuart, pointing at the man, "he'd be on some faraway prison planet with all the serial killers, violent sex offenders, and boy-bands."

"Yeah..." Stuart said slowly.

"Now, _that_ bloke--" and here he pointed at the Clive Owen man, "--that bloke has more personality _disorders_ than he has personality."

Stuart smirked. "Nobody's asking you to shag his personality, Vince."

"I used to think so, too," he said. "But it's only a matter of time before I take one of these blokes home and wake up in a tub of ice with my kidney missing."

"So, what, you're gonna be a monk, now?"

Vince said nothing. It sounded unreasonable now that he'd heard it out loud. And yet... it was becoming clear to Vince that to consent to a shag with the sort of man he attracted was to turn his back on beauty and joy. And if he consented to that, who was really to blame when it all went to shit?

"Look," said Stuart. "He's all right. Take him back to yours, shag him blind. He's not gonna rob your fucking kidney, for Christ's sake."

"Could steal my stereo," Vince said thoughtfully.

"Your stereo's a piece of shit anyway."

He stared down at the Clive Owen man. The Clive Owen man stared back, still not moving, not even smiling. He could've been standing there in a trance, he showed so little awareness of his surroundings.

"Don't you think that's weird?" he asked Stuart. "He's not _moving_. I think the lights have given him a seizure." He considered this. "People move when they're having seizures, though, don't they? I can't--"

"_Vince_." Stuart's expression said that he was getting ready to steal Vince's kidney himself, and that in that case, there would be no waking up in a tub of ice with no memory of how he'd gotten there. Vince would remember every agonizing second of the experience.

"All right," he said placatingly. "I'll go. I'll do it."

He sounded more sure than he felt. They always _looked_ all right before they turned out to be weirdos, and this one looked more all right than most. Probably he lived in a militant survivalist compound, and he was out looking for a few likely hostages. Vince would be taken captive, and kept in an underground bunker till he was as oily and wasted as Keith Richards.

"Vince!"

"I love you," he said, hugging Stuart tightly.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Stuart snarled, but he hugged Vince back. "Will you just _go_?"

He was halfway down the stairs when he heard Stuart call his name. Vince looked back; Stuart's expression was unreadable.

"What?"

"See you tomorrow."  
   
 

***

The Clive Owen man-- whose name had turned out to be Harry-- flopped down on his back next to Vince, sighing contentedly. "That was _outstanding_."

"Mm," said Vince. It was the best he could come up with. It had been a long, _long_ time since a shag had rendered him preverbal, but he'd always known there was a reason why he'd remembered it so fondly.

He'd taken Harry home with every intention of following Stuart's suggestion that he shag the man blind, but it had been clear from the moment the door shut behind them that Harry had his own ideas as to how the evening should unfold.

Harry had twisted him in knots, turned him inside out, and left him lying face down on his bed, shuddering wonderfully and incapable of forming a recognizable word, much less a sentence.

"I wish I could stay," said Harry, climbing off Vince's bed. "Do you again in the morning. But I'm up early."

"Mm," said Vince. He managed to open the eye that wasn't mashed against his pillow. Harry was shrugging into his shirt.

"Stuart said you were good. He has a gift for understatement." He slipped into his trousers, then looked up, suddenly, as if something had just occurred to him. "You all right? You're awfully quiet."

"Mm."

Harry grinned. "Been a while, eh?" He smoothed a palm over Vince's hair. "Gotta go. See you around?"

For a good ninety seconds Vince lay there, the epitome of contentment, basking in the aftershocks of an outstanding shag, and listening to Harry hunt down his stray clothes. Then, unfortunately, rational thought intervened. Vince was out of bed in a flash, down the hall and stopping Harry at the door.

"Hang on a minute," he said.

"Something wrong?"

He searched Harry's face. "_Stuart_ said I was good?"

Harry's smile faded. "Yeah."

Vince didn't want to ask; he was sure it would _kill_ him to ask. But he had to know. "Did he put you up to this?"

"No," he said, just a shade too quickly.

"Oh my _god_," Vince moaned, collapsing against the wall.

"It's not what you think," Harry assured him. "I mean, yeah, he pointed you out to me, but he didn't have to twist my arm, you know? It was more like, I didn't notice you straight away--"

"Thanks very much," he said bitterly.

"But once I did, once I _did_\--"

"Bloody hell." He shoved himself off the wall and headed back to his bedroom. "You'd better go," he called to Harry. "You're up early."

"Vince, I'm sorry." When Vince didn't answer, Harry let himself out.

Vince flung himself down on his bed, arms thrown wide. He was uncomfortably aware that he was posed like Christ, but he couldn't move.

"_Bastard_."

He lay there for what seemed like days, just brooding. There was no telling why Stuart had done it. Maybe it was meant to be a gesture of some kind, however misguided, but there was no denying that Stuart was a devious cunt far more often than he was a humanitarian.

Stuart had to have known how Vince would react if he found out about it, that was the main thing. And he obviously hadn't taken pains to conceal this information from his friend; Harry had spilled his guts the minute the subject came up. He wouldn't last fifteen minutes in the MI6.

__

If you don't shag him, I will.

For all Vince knew, Stuart was shagging him _now_. He rolled over and snatched his mobile off the nightstand.

Both Stuart's mobile and his answerphone were turned off. Vince wasn't worried. You can't follow a man around every day for sixteen years and not get some sense of his habits.  
   
 

***

"I thought I'd find you here," Vince said theatrically.

"I _live_ here, you twat," said Stuart. "What are _you_ doing here? You chicken out and chuck him out at the last minute?"

"He finished with me. I thought maybe he'd come to see _you_."

"And, ehm, why the fuck would he do that?" Stuart asked pleasantly.

"Dunno." He'd meant it to sound provocative, but he was so flummoxed by the tableau before him that it had come out sounding like he honestly didn't know.

It was a moment for the Anticlimax Hall of Fame. Even on his way to Stuart's flat, Vince had had no idea what he intended to say to Stuart when he got there, but he was even less sure of himself now. He'd found Stuart _by himself_ on a Saturday night, fully dressed, looking thoroughly cheesed off, and watching telly. It wasn't even porn. Vince couldn't see the screen from where he stood, but it sounded like a _nature_ program.

"How are you feeling?" he asked cautiously. Stuart spared him a scathing look. Vince tried again. "Anything good on?"

"Vince. You're not doing me any good standing around yammering."

He heaved a sigh of resignation. He really was the saddest man alive. "What do you need?"

"Popcorn."

"Pardon?"

"Popcorn," Stuart repeated calmly. "Perhaps you've heard of it. It's white and fluffy, has a tendency to get stuck in your teeth, dead popular at the cinema--"

"I know what it is, you twat. I just can't believe you _have_ some." It seemed about as likely as Stuart having a lot of Hummel figurines.

Stuart didn't look so sure of this himself. "Why wouldn't I have popcorn?"

"I thought the closest thing to food that _you_ kept in was flavored condoms."

Stuart grinned. "Fuck off, Vince."

"Fuck off yourself," Vince said easily, poking around in Stuart's cupboards. "This is pathetic," he announced. "You haven't got a hot air popper, you haven't got a _pot_, this place is like a bloody _show_ home."

"It's on the counter."

Confused, Vince turned around, and sure enough, there it was: a box of microwave popcorn. "Microwave popcorn," he said disgustedly.

"So?"

"Stuart, there are some things a man can't do if he wants to lead a civilized life. He can't drink instant coffee, he can't make pancakes with his toaster, and he can't eat microwave bloody popcorn." He might've continued on in this vein for some time, but he got distracted. "Oi. You didn't know I was coming, did you?"

He flashed Vince a look of profound irritation. "_So_?"

"So what exactly did you think was going to happen if you left it sitting on the counter like this? Or were you waiting for the popcorn gnomes to come by and make it for you?"

It would've been pointless to answer that question; even as Vince had asked it, he'd been tearing open one of the packets. However senseless Stuart's plan had been, there was no denying that it had worked out for him in the end.

"That's fabulous," Vince muttered, yanking open the microwave door and tossing the popcorn bag in. "Really, it's brilliant. I came here to have a go at you for messing me about, and instead I've become your bloody popcorn gnome."

"Oh, for fuck's sake, what is it this time?"

"Harry," he said. Stuart looked at him blankly. "The _shag_," he said, rolling his eyes. "With the leather trousers-- look, it's no use pretending you don't know who I mean, he _told_ me what you did."

Stuart raised his eyebrows. "And what did I do, exactly?"

"_I'm_ asking _you_."

"Why bother asking if he told you everything?" he smirked.

"Because he _didn't_ tell me everything, did he? He didn't tell me _why_ you did it. The best I could come up with was that you felt sorry for me. But then I thought, no, don't be daft, if he felt sorry for you, he wouldn't take a chance you'd be rejected, he'd just _rent_ you a shag." Stuart said nothing. "Oh my _god_, you bought him for me."

"I bought him a drink," Stuart growled. "I bought him a drink, I dragged him out into the middle of the dance floor, and I said, 'Oi, look at the twat on the balcony, up there in the orange shirt, the one with the fucking martyr complex. He sucks cock like lives are at stake.'"

He leaned against the counter and stared morosely at the microwave. "You want this in a bowl, or out of the bag?"

"In a bowl. I hate getting butter all over my hands."

"You needn't worry," he said, wrinkling his nose as the smell of the popcorn began wafting out. "It isn't butter. It's simulated butter-flavored vegetable-oil-based something or other. _Lite_."

"Are you done?"

"What's the point of eating it, that's what I want to know. Next thing, you'll be dropping pots of money on those meat pills the astronauts use. Ten-course gourmet supper in a sandwich bag."

"There's lozenges left in the cutlery drawer," Stuart told him. "You're gonna need them if you're planning on shouting at me all bloody night."

Vince grabbed the popcorn bowl and deposited it on Stuart's lap, then flung himself onto an armchair. Apparently satisfied that Vince was done with him for a few minutes at least, Stuart had already returned his attention to the telly.

"I don't need you to find men for me," Vince said after a long silence.

Stuart met his eyes, but said nothing. Vince could well imagine what he was thinking. The man Stuart had found for him was the first decent shag he'd had in ages. Nine thousand wrongs didn't make a right, though.

"You laugh yourself sick over my dodgy shags, but the truth is, you're just as mad as they are."

"Mm," said Stuart, smiling faintly. "Lucky for you I'm on your side, eh?"  
   
   
 

IV. Sideshow Vince and the Pickled Punks  
   
 

"What about him?" Hazel pointed at a wiry blond standing at the bar.

"Oh, _him_. He gets drunk and takes his clothes off in public."

"Nothing wrong with that," she grinned.

Vince grimaced. "At a senior citizen's home during Sunday brunch?"

"There's something to look forward to," she said, sipping her drink. "And here I thought it was all drool, decay, and daytime telly."

The lot of them had all shown up at Via Fossa at more or less the same time that night, but they'd been separated quickly. Nathan and Alex were dancing themselves stupid, Bernie had run off after a coy man in chaps, and Stuart was prowling the place in search of someone in need of a good shafting. Only Hazel and Vince were still at the table, getting quietly drunk and watching the world as they knew it go by. There were worse ways to pass an evening.

Of the many things that impressed Vince about Stuart's skills of seduction, it was his uncanny facility with faces that stood out the most. Stuart himself couldn't be nailed down on even a vague ballpark figure as to how many men he'd had, and he only rarely remembered their names the next morning, yet in spite of this, statues of the Virgin Mary wept milk in Mexico, Elvis Presley's likeness appeared out of nowhere on the sides of refrigerators in Memphis, and Stuart Jones almost never made a pass at the same man twice.

On those few occasions that he _did_, Vince was less inclined to laugh than to step outside to see whether or not fish fell from the sky and the sea had turned to blood.

Vince pointed at a ponytailed man in black jeans who was loitering by the pay phones. "You see that bloke over there?"

Hazel smiled. "Ooh, he's nice." Vince shook his head. "He's not nice?"

"Small-time criminal," said Vince. "He's loaded, but he takes the bus, because it's harder for the police to track him that way."

"Oh, give over," she said, cuffing him.

"I was in his flat once, happened to glance through his mail while he was washing up. He's got dozens of aliases. Huge stack of envelopes, as big as my head. No two addressed to the same person."

"That could mean anything," she scoffed.

"Yeah," Vince said glumly. "Maybe they're his murdered flatmates."

He spotted Stuart chatting up a college boy with long, curly hair. He was a nice-looking bloke, pretty, really, and animated. The poor bastard obviously had no idea that Stuart wasn't listening to a word he said. If he was paying attention for _any_ reason, it was because he was imagining what the college boy sounded like when he came.

"Look at that," said Vince, pointing them out to Hazel. "Stuart and his new stalker."

"Better stock up on coffee and tissues," said Hazel.

It was only a matter of time before Stuart brought him over to introduce him around. That was his special brand of malice: making them feel welcome before he chucked them out. Like being turned away from the gates of Paradise, if Paradise was a land of gin, tobacco, and smartypants.

__

Well, isn't it?

They always turned to Vince in the end, to sob their guts out, or to pump him for information in the hopes of exacting retribution.

Only the elderly, the insane, and women in bad relationships looked to Vince for comfort and hope more often than did Stuart's abandoned shags. (Women in bad relationships sensed instinctively that Vince understood what it was like to love someone who couldn't be bothered either way. They also sensed that he wouldn't judge them for it, because really, how could he?)

Hazel tugged on his sleeve. "What about him?" She pointed at a swarthy man with a brush cut and an ambitious mustache.

Vince sighed. "He can't maintain an erection unless he suspends cement blocks from his nipples by hooks."

"You've never even seen him before!"

"I can just tell."

She lit a fag. "Were _any_ of them any good?"

"'Course they were, yeah." He smiled reminiscently. "There was this one bloke, Milo something. Satanist. Wanted to shag in a church during Mass. He was _fantastic_."

"No, my son did _not_ shag in a church."

"Nah. Not open at two in the morning, are they? He had this temple set up in his cellar, a Satanic temple. It was all right. I kept my eyes closed, tried not to listen too carefully to what he was saying... got used to the smell..."

"You didn't."

"No," he admitted. "I might've done, but he got arrested while we were waiting for a taxi. Never did find out why..."

The pity on Hazel's face was almost more than Vince could stand. "Oh, Vinnie."

"We're leaving," said Stuart, bounding up behind them with the college boy on his arm. "Marcus just saw one of his professors heading into the toilets."

Vince frowned. "So?"

"So we're leaving," Stuart said impatiently. "You coming, or what?"

"Nah. Think I'll fuck off home."

Hazel and Stuart stared at him. (Marcus was more interested in the little castle Vince had built out of sundry items on the table.)

It occurred to Vince that the main reason why being known to people is such a liability is that one can't pull a story about ailing friends and relatives out of one's arse if it's to friends and relatives that one is trying to make one's excuses.

With this in mind, Vince attempted to offer them something approaching the truth, however much he was embarrassed by the Sophia Loren of it all: "I feel like hell, and I want to be alone."

And that was when Vince learned the inestimable value of being the type of person who doesn't say things like that often: because it was clear that he meant it, nobody put up an argument.  
   
 

***

"The gun is good. The penis... is _evil_."

"You've got it wrong, mate," Vince muttered at the screen. "It's your costume designer who's evil."

Weary but not particularly tired, Vince had decided to hire some videos, stay up late, and eat homemade popcorn as smugly as possible. His passion for science fiction hadn't much endeared him to, well, anyone, but he wouldn't give it up. It was the only way he knew of to _enjoy_ spending time with freaks and mutants.

Because he was already depressed, he'd chosen _Zardoz_ along with several films he actually liked. He'd seen it what felt like dozens of times, and it didn't improve remotely with repeated viewing, in his estimation, but he'd always felt like it _should_.

Instead, he sank further and further into the brackish depths of the particular brand of insanity that compels people to try to make sense of stupid science fiction films from the seventies in which angry, topless women fight over the likes of a flabby Sean Connery in tiny red hot pants.

Vince enjoyed the sensible application of body hair as much as the next person, but the Sean Connery of _Zardoz_ had a way of making chest hair seem as attractive as back hair, which is to say, not at all. Vince was willing to admit that he was perhaps somewhat bitter that Sean had chosen _this_ of all films in an early effort to distance himself from James Bond.

__

This isn't that bad.

He tried to imagine his life as a regular person. Sunday paper, TV dinners, no need to set the alarm, because he was always in bed at a sensible hour. Darts on Fridays, plenty of time to clean out the aquarium, fresh bread and milk in at all times...

It had all seemed so much nicer when it was happening to somebody else. Now he felt like he was plunging headlong into _Eleanor Rigby_. The Beatles had only wondered where all the lonely people came from because not a one of them had ever dated a man who only wanted to dry hump because as long as he wasn't _naked_ with another man, there was still a chance that he wouldn't burn in hell.

"I'm such a twat."

Stuart owned him. That was the kind of thought best left alone, but leaving it alone made it no less true. Stuart owned him, and unfortunately, Vince wasn't the type of man to go barmy one day and stab a person eighty-six times with an aluminum turkey baster. The closest he came to that kind of man was dating them.

He could stay at home and watch terrible movies every night, he could go on an extended road trip and never come back, he could become the kind of criminal who secretly wants to get caught, and go to prison for the rest of his life, he could do _anything_, and still he would belong to Stuart. Perhaps he wouldn't notice it quite so often, but it would be there, lurking inside like a crawling, black cancer.

Harsh knocking on his door startled him out of his brooding.

"It's open," he called out.

A moment later, Stuart appeared in the doorway, looking crabby.

"Hiya," said Vince. "What happened to Marcus?"

"Homework," he said shortly.

"Oh. Sorry. You want a drink?"

"You got any vodka in?"

"Yeah." Vince busied himself fixing it while Stuart stripped off his jacket, prowling around the flat. "You all right? You look a bit, sort of..."

Stuart glanced back at him from the telly, all confusion and dismay. "What the fuck is _this_?"

He grinned. "Bloody _Zardoz_, if you can believe it. I saw it at the shop, sitting there all covered in dust, it was sad, really--"

"You _hate_ _Zardoz_."

Vince handed him his drink and sat down again. "I dunno. I think it'll grow on me, given time."

"Vince, nobody _has_ that kind of time. Not even _you_."

"Look at him," said Vince. "He's being punished by the collective for subversive thinking." Stuart rolled his eyes. "It's profound."

"It's not bloody profound. It's bollocks."

"It's a very controversial film," Vince assured him. "Some say it's genius, some say it's pretentious, some say it's satire, some say it's the product of too many hallucinogenic drugs..."

Stuart stalked to the nearest window and glared out into the street. "Uh-huh. What do _you_ say?"

Vince took a good look at the scene playing out on the telly. Sean Connery was wearing a wedding dress and fleeing a group of bloodthirsty torch-bearers who looked like they were from the National Coalition for Batik Revival. "It's bollocks," he sighed. "You can sit down, if you like. That is, if your trousers aren't offended--"

"Vince, what--" he flashed an aimless, angry look around Vince's flat. "What are you _doing_, here?"

It wasn't quite 'What the hell are you trying to pull, mister?' but it was close enough. He couldn't look away from Stuart, and he didn't dare laugh, but _god_, he wanted to. At that moment, Stuart's look said that all the world was a stage and the men and women merely players, but that Vince had decided to adlib at the last minute without even warning him first.

"I just wasn't up to it tonight," he said apologetically. "Did you have a look around? It was like a bloody _sideshow_ in there. Boulevard of Forgotten Shags. Only you don't _forget_ blokes like them, do you? You don't forget the married man who wants to shag in his daughter's bedroom while the wife and kids are out of town, you don't forget the bloke who has his ex's initials branded on his arse--"

Stuart sat down at last, on the sofa next to Vince. "I couldn't do this every night," he griped.

"Neither could I," he said. "It's a terrible film."

Stuart ignored him. "I couldn't do it more than once or twice a month."

"You don't _have_ to do it _now_."

"Jesus Christ, Vince, even _you_ can't be this fucking dense." He raked his hair. He was making an effort to compose himself, Vince realized. If they'd been anywhere but on Vince's sofa in the middle of the night, trying not to watch _Zardoz_, he would've been nervous. Stuart gave him a searching look. "I don't know if I can be..."

He made a vague gesture that should have been totally indecipherable, but just like _that_, Vince finally twigged.

Vince was a weirdo magnet, Stuart was the biggest weirdo of them all, and Vince had been too absorbed in his half-assed deconstruction of _Zardoz_ to make anything of the fact that Stuart was dead sober, had almost certainly packed the college boy off home, and had until only very recently been pacing around Vince's flat like he was waiting for a nasty electric shock.

"Oh my _god_. This is-- I mean, you, we-- Well, what brought _this_ on?" Resentment came off of Stuart in waves. Vince smiled at him affectionately. "You might _enjoy_ yourself, you know. I'm not number one with maniacs and lunatics for nothing."

"Fuck off, Vince," he said irritably.

They were inches apart now, and maybe Vince's mind was filling in the blanks where his senses came up short, but he swore he could smell Stuart, feel his heat, almost _taste_ him--

And then his head was in Stuart's hands, and Stuart's head was in his hands, his hands carding through that hair, that thick, fabulous hair, and their mouths came together like the sea and the sand, moving, moving, slipping away but always returning, and Vince moaned into his mouth, a desperate, heartfelt moan, because the sixteen years he'd waited for this seemed like no time at all, now, seemed like sixteen _seconds_, longing, lust, and loneliness concentrated in a single, devastating flashflood, and Stuart kissed him back, just the same, just the same.

Stuart's hand wandered downward, skimming past Vince's throat, tweaking a nipple, stroking his stomach, finally coming to rest between Vince's legs, where it gripped his hard-on tightly and squeezed and squeezed.

"What do you want?" he growled, licking Vince's ear. "Anything you want."

"Suck me," Vince said instantly. "Suck me. Please."

He kissed Vince again, his tongue plunging deep inside his mouth while he stripped Vince of his clothes. The shirt went one way, the trousers another, boxers and socks kicked under the sofa where they would likely never be found. Then he sat back on his haunches and took a good look at what he was getting, Vince stretched out before him like a long weekend.

When Vince had imagined this moment, he'd always given himself the best lines. He'd imagined some sort of interlude in which Stuart declared his love, misty-eyed and soppy, and said a lot of things about how he'd only shagged eight of the ten percent of gay men on the planet because he was afraid of his love for Vince. Simultaneous orgasms, a strangely shy visit at Hazel's the following day... (It was all completely stupid, but at least he'd had the good sense not to tell anyone about it.)

At no time had it ever crossed his mind that Stuart might strip him as efficiently as an underpaid customs official, take him down his throat with no preamble whatsoever, and bring him off in thirty seconds, but he did. Stuart hadn't given him a chance, but it was a bit embarrassing, even so.

"I'm sorry," Vince said, blushing fiercely.

"You should be. It's not _my_ fault."

Stuart licked his lips with satisfaction, tracing Vince's ribcage with both hands. The look on his face was one Vince had seen before, though never directed at him: it was the look of a gourmet at the buffet of a lifetime, a look that said nothing so much as 'Where do I start? It all looks so good.' But then he glanced up and caught something in Vince's expression that he didn't like.

"It was brilliant, Vince," he said. "Next time I'll draw it out nice and slow for you, yeah? Give you something to cry about." He yanked his shirt over his head and tossed it aside. "Come on, shift yourself. I'm not shagging on that thing."

When had Vince lost the upper hand? He wasn't sure. All he knew was that he had once _had_ the upper hand, but he hadn't realized it until it was gone, and now Stuart was getting the best of him in his own flat. Maybe it was true that some men were made to be slavers and some men were made to be slaves, but Vince was determined to buck the odds.

By the time Vince made it to his bedroom, Stuart had already stripped naked and taken it over, finding lube and condoms with the ease of long familiarity.

"You could at least _pretend_ you're not sure of me," said Vince.

He sprawled out on his back and gave Vince a smile of intense carnal invitation. "I'm not _wearing_ a condom, am I?"

Stuart closed his eyes and trailed a hand down his chest slowly in mimicry of the caress he'd given Vince. When he reached his cock, he moaned softly and began to stroke, firm, loving strokes, his hips rocking smoothly, his breath catching with each upward slide.

That he was well aware of the picture he made and working it for all it was worth in no way diminished the effect: Vince was already hard again. "Blimey," he croaked. "Learning to love yourself really _is_ the greatest love of all."

Stuart opened one eye. "What's the matter?" he gasped.

"You'll think I'm a twat."

"I _already_ think you're a twat." His hand slowed, and finally came to a stop. The look he gave Vince then said nothing about love and everything about suicide bombing. "I'm lying here in _your_ bed, wanking off, and you're standing there looking like you're at the edge of a fucking volcano, after _you_ had a go at _me_ for being a bit hesitant."

"_A bit hesitant_?" Vince squeaked. "Is that what you said? A bit bloody hesitant?" Stuart just watched him, just waited. "You've had _Big Bob_," Vince said at last.

"Well, so what's he got that _you_ haven't got?"

"No one's calling me Big Vince."

Stuart looked at Vince's cock pointedly. "No one's calling you _Little_ Vince, either. C'mere and fuck me, and I'll call you Talullah Bankhead if you want."

"It's a bit insulting," said Vince. "That's all. For sixteen years, you'd shag a mangy Saint Bernard before you'd look twice at _me_, and now you've made your mind up and I'm supposed to just play along exactly as if this isn't the most significant moment of my entire life?"

He grinned cheekily and stretched himself out, crossing his arms behind his head, bending one leg at the knee, leaving absolutely nothing to Vince's imagination.

"_Bastard_."

There was fretting to be done, fears to nourish, and insecurities to indulge, but on the other hand, there was Stuart, naked and waiting for him, and however much Vince _might_ disappoint with his performance, he'd disappoint for sure if he didn't perform at all. He wasn't going to get a second chance.

"Right. Uh, d'you want music?"

"_Vince_."

"Evening paper?" he suggested, approaching the bed slowly. "Icy blender drinks?" Vince sat down primly next to Stuart, and stroked his cheek. "Stuart, I..."

Vince might have said something to queer the whole thing, something strange and irrelevant and thoroughly off-putting, perhaps something about the astonishing execution rate in Saudi Arabia, but Stuart recognized it in his expression, and gently urged Vince down to lie on top of him.

He cradled Vince between his thighs, tilting his hips just so, and said, "You can tell me later," before delivering a kiss that was hot, and wet, and lewd, all tongue and teeth, making Vince squirm against him as surely as the hands on his arse did the same.

Stuart broke away on a moan, and Vince disentangled himself enough to lick his way along Stuart's jaw, his neck, his throat. He wriggled a little more and Stuart released him entirely, leaving him free to move downward, tasting his nipples, exploring the sweet contours of his stomach. He could've spent days just licking Stuart, just stroking him, to see how he'd move, how he'd sound, how he'd feel.

It crossed his mind finally that Stuart stood to gain as much from Vince's long obsession as he did. It had probably crossed Stuart's mind ages ago, the canny bastard.

"God," he murmured, "you're so..." Stuart stopped him again, digging his hands into Vince's hair and urging him down those last crucial inches. He cupped Stuart's balls in one hand and bent his head over his cock. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather watch a video? I found a _dreadful_ film called _Hot Vampire Nights_."

"Vince, in about ten seconds, you're gonna find out what it's like to _be_ one of the undead-- ohh..." Vince took Stuart's cock in his mouth, and nearly came again. _Delayed bloody gratification. Oh my god_. It was perfect, everything he'd imagined, nice and thick, not so long he'd be risking his life if he deep-throated it.

And Stuart, _Stuart_, you'd think he'd never been blown before. He held Vince's head between his hands and rocked his hips, fucking his mouth almost languidly, as if every second of the experience was vitally important to him, as if it might never happen again. He arched his back cleanly with every thrust, moaning _Vince_ and _Vince_ and _Vince_.

Vince never wanted to hear his name again unless he could hear it from Stuart in exactly that tone.

He sucked Stuart harder, took him in deeper, working his shaft with his tongue. Stuart froze beneath him, his head thrown back, his breath caught in his throat, his semen flooding Vince's mouth. Then he collapsed with a hoarse, sated sigh.

"Mm, Vince," he said happily.

"Stuart," he said, licking a stray bit of come from the corner of his mouth. Stuart didn't move. "Oi, Stuart," he said, poking him in the stomach. "Seriously. I thought I'd made it clear that I don't actually _want_ to watch _Hot Vampire Nights_."

"Do us a favor and bring me a glass of water," he mumbled.

Muttering darkly, Vince climbed off the bed and stomped out of the room. When he walked back in with Stuart's water he was struck in the chest with a flying condom.

Stuart rolled his eyes. "You were meant to catch that, you twat."

"You might've said something before you threw it, then," Vince grumbled, banging the glass down on the nightstand. "Your beverage, m'lord."

"You'll have to find it now."

"I realize you have a low opinion of my sex life, Stuart, but I do keep more than one condom in, for those very rare occasions on which I manage to trick someone into a shag."

He shrugged. "I only saw the one."

"You had a whole bloody box--" Vince narrowed his eyes. "If you want a look at my bum, you just have to ask."

Stuart grinned rudely. "All right, let's have a look, then."

Vince blushed.

"That's what I thought." He reached under a pillow and produced lube and another condom. "How do you want it?" he said, shaking the condom packet at him.

"How do _you_ want it?"

He gave Vince a reproachful look. "How did you imagine it?"

Vince was scandalized. "I'm not going to just..." Stuart crossed his arms over his chest. "On your back," he grumbled.

"Why?" he asked, though he had to be perfectly aware of the answer.

"Don't push your luck." Vince gave him a lingering kiss before settling between his thighs again.

"You like kissing," he said.

"Did you think I wouldn't? Never mind," he said quickly when Stuart opened his mouth. "I don't want to know. Don't you? Like kissing?"

"I like everything," Stuart purred.

"Mm, so I've heard." He squirted some lube into his hand. "Shift up a bit, would you?"

He meant to go slowly, work his fingers in a bit at a time, but Stuart was having none of it; as soon as he felt Vince's touch, he bucked hard and took them in all the way, gasping.

"Greedy," Vince said softly, stretching Stuart carefully. "You want it fast, do you? Hard?"

"I told you," he growled, "I don't bloody care. Whatever you want."

"Be nice to think you had something in mind," he said. He took Stuart's cock in his free hand, wanking it firmly. Stuart was hard again in no time.

"Nudity," he gasped. "Touching. _Fucking_. You're the one who knows what color our house is gonna be."

"Do not," Vince lied.

He took his hands away to roll the condom down his cock. "You do realize," he said seriously, slinging Stuart's legs over his shoulders, "that this is going to change things between us."

Stuart grinned. "Fuck off, Vince."

Vince thrust in slowly with a lush moan, closing his eyes. Stuart was _so_ hot, and _so_ tight, and already he squeezed Vince playfully, urging him on. When he was all the way in, Stuart bucked against him, just to be sure, savoring it.

He opened his eyes, intent on seeing Stuart's face. Stuart opened his eyes to slits, and when he managed to focus on Vince, he breathed, "Oh, _fuck_."

Vince grinned at him and began to move.

He didn't really have one particular fantasy about Stuart that had played out in his mind time and again. Sometimes it was hard and fast, sometimes slow and sweet, sometimes they were fucking, sometimes it was just a mutual wank. Vince took him hard and fast now, the principal reason being that he'd been hard and aching for it for what felt like months. He made Stuart work for it, pushing and pulling him as much as he pushed and pulled himself. Stuart braced himself against the wall and pushed back hard, not even able to moan now, just bucking against Vince with every thrust, breathing harshly.

Vince bent them both and kissed Stuart clumsily. "Stuart," he rasped. "It's got to be now. _Now_, or-- ohh, _god_, _god_\--" His orgasm shot through him like lightning, and he fucked Stuart desperately, determined that if nothing else, they'd get the simultaneous orgasm part right. Miraculously, it happened: Stuart bore down on him, moaning loudly, and they rode it out together, reaching a solid agreement for perhaps the first time in their lives.

When Vince could move again, he rolled onto his back, only to have Stuart roll on top of him, draping an arm over his chest and a leg over his thighs. For a long while, they lay like that, Stuart drowsing, Vince staring up at the stars through the skylight.

"Stuart?"

"Mm?"

"I don't want to live a normal life."

Stuart laughed softly. "You've got nothing to worry about."

He wanted to tell Stuart everything: that he loved his hair, and the way his eyes changed color, and the way he walked, and his profile, and the smoothness of his skin. That he was beautiful, vital, lithe. He wanted to tell Stuart how much he loved his _spirit_, his attitude, his honesty, his sexual democracy. He wanted to tell Stuart that he worshiped him, but that he was _better_ than a god, _better_, because he was vulnerable, and fallible, and a stupid fucking cunt, at the same time that he was all and everything to Vince, and that it gave him hope for his own future.

He wanted to tell Stuart all of these things, but he didn't, because he knew Stuart would hate it. So Vince kept it all to himself. He didn't mind. He knew he'd get around to it eventually.  
 


End file.
